Franchise Fidelity to Reality Roster Project (Official Thread)

[ViatorLion10]

Welcome to the first ever release of my “Franchise Fidelity to Reality” roster set! I am excited to throw my hat in the ring for consideration as the top roster set available for franchise players. I have been working very hard over the last two years to develop my extremely in-depth system, and it is finally ready to debut.

For years, I have been trying to achieve the best possible franchise experience. Full minors rosters added enjoyment to my experience, however, they often created huge problems for franchise longevity due to unbalanced potentials amongst prospects and MLB players. I then tried out other creators who attempted re-rate both overalls and potentials for MLB and MiLB players. I give these creators a ton of credit because I now realize how much effort goes into this process. That being said, I saw a vast room for improvement in a multitude of areas, so therefore, I set out to put my own little spin on things


What sets this roster apart from all the others?
One of the things I wanted to focus on the most was trying to best recreate in-game every player’s unique style and level of play. To achieve this, I needed to get testing in-game to see what attribute values could replicate what statistics.

So that’s exactly what I did. I spent hours testing how variable values of attributes would lead to different outputs for statistics. I was then able to create standard curves from this testing so I could extrapolate how a player’s real-life statistics could be quantified into an in-game rating. From what I can tell, this is a feature unique to only my roster set. Others certainly use real life statistics to generate ratings, but none that I have found try to replicate those real-life numbers in-game.

After these ratings have been generated, I also go through an auditing process. No system is perfect, and I know that. Sometimes players can fall through the cracks and be heavily over/underrated. This auditing process allows me to catch these players and to adjust them accordingly. These changes are only made to more truly replicate a player’s actual value in real-life and I try to keep them at a minimum when possible.

The second aspect that I wanted to heavily focus on in the depth of prospects. I was never a fan of rosters that prioritized AAA/AA filler players over top prospects who are in the low minors. Not to mention, sometimes lesser-known prospects can often be the most intriguing, and therefore, the most fun to play with in-game. That is why I decided to include every team’s top 30 prospects. This allows for significant depth in terms of franchise management, as well as it helps to really set apart strong farm systems from weak farm systems. Again, this is the only roster to my knowledge that goes in-depth from #1 all the way to #30.

The last thing that is unique to this roster set is a tiered potential system. This is by no means something that only I do, however, my tiered system is broken up into various roles that players can fill. Players are assigned certain roles based on their level of play and projected future level of play, and thus are assigned a pertinent value.


Full list of features

Spoiler

Re-rates of all attributes, overalls, and potentials for every player on 40-man rosters and former MLB players on MiLB contracts (~1400 players)
o Powered by real-life statistics and advanced metrics (Statcast and Fielding bible)
· Inclusion of every team’s top 30 prospects with the most accurate archetypes, current overalls, and potentials (900 players)
o Powered by MLB Pipeline and ProspectsLive.com
· Simple re-rates and potential re-works of roster filler players (~500 players)
· In-depth pitch reworks for MLB players to best replicate repertoires and pitch effectiveness
o Powered by Statcast
· Tiered potential system to balance potentials across the league and allow for franchise longevity

Methodology

Spoiler

Statistics from the past three seasons are gathered for every single player to be edited. I believe baseball to be a long game, and that the longer you play, the more your true ability starts to show. Therefore, I do not weight the performance of any one season over the other. A player’s average performance over a three-year period will be used to generate his attributes. The only exception to this I have is this: when clear patterns are forming for a player’s performance (e.g. a player is clearly improving or declining).

In most cases, whatever the numbers say are the numbers I keep. However, special considerations are taken for players who don’t meet certain thresholds (e.g. PA for hitters or IP for pitchers). When this happens, I then integrate projections into my calculations. Sometimes this will improve a player’s attribute, but other times it can pull their values down. I believe this to be a fair way to accurately assess younger players who are just getting their first cup of coffee in the majors or players who haven’t seen a lot of playing time (either due to roles or injuries).

As far as potentials go, I don’t aim to have a certain percentage of players fall in certain categories. I let a player’s performance and projections determine their value alone. To determine potentials, I assign players a future role which corresponds to a range of overalls. These roles are defined below:

Pos Players

SP

RP

Potential

Elite

Elite

95-99

Superstar

Ace

Elite Closer

90-95

All-Star

Top Rotation

Top Closer

86-90

Great

SP 2/3

High Leverage

82-85

Above Avg.

Mid Rotation

Mid-Late RP

78-81

Avg.

SP 4/5

Regular RP

75-77

Role

5th SP

Low Leverage

72-74

AAAA

69-71

AAA

64-68

Position player attribute values
· Contact: Batting average

o League average: 60

· Power: ISO

o League average: 65

· Vision: K%

o League average: 42

· Discipline: BB%

o League average: 60

· Clutch: RBI/PA

o League average: 60

· Durability: GP

o League average: 73

· Speed: Sprint speed

o League average: 50

· Arm strength:

o This is a frustrating one because I know for sure that Statcast has the data, unfortunately they do not publish it for the public.

o Catchers: Pop time

o Infielders: Kept as default (there was no metric I could find that satisfied me, so I am deciding to keep these as default)

o Outfielders: Based on a combination of OF assists and ARM value (only available for OFs per Fangraphs.com)

o League average: 70

· Arm accuracy:

o Catchers: Based on a combination of runners CS% and throwing errors

o Infielders: Based on number of throwing errors and total throwing chances

o Outfielders: Based on a combination of OF assists, throwing errors, and ARM value

o League average: 70

· Fielding:

o Catchers: Runs extra strikes/Pitches

o Infielders/Outfielders: Outs above average/Opportunities (remove throwing errors from outs above average calculation)

· Reaction:

o Catchers: Same as fielding

o Infielders: Outs above average/Opportunities (remove both throwing and fielding errors from outs above average calculation)

o Outfielders: OF jump

· Blocking: Blocks/(Blocks + PB + WP)

o League average: 65

· Stealing/BR aggressiveness: SBA/H

o League average: 40

Pitching attribute values
· Stamina: IP/App

o League average for SP: 76

o League average for RP: ~20

· Per 9 attribute: Corresponding per 9 values

o League average H/9: 60

o HR/9: 55

o K/9: 65

o BB/9: 65

· Clutch: LOB%

o League average: 60

· Pitch control: Edge%

o League average: 60

· Pitch movement: Whiff%

o League average: 60

· Pitch considerations:

o “Sinkers” have more vertical break and “two-seam fastballs” have more horizontal break

o “Change-ups” have more vertical break and “circle change-ups” have more horizontal break

o “Splitters” are “change-ups” that have exceeded velocity maximums

o “Two-seamers” or “sinkers” are “circle change-ups” that have exceeded velocity maximums

o “12-6 curveballs” have more vertical break, “sweeping curveballs” have mor horizontal break, “curveballs” have very similar vertical and horizontal break

o “Knuckle curveballs” are “curveballs” or “12-6 curveballs” that have exceeded velocity maximums

o “Slurves” are “sweeping curveballs” that have exceeded velocity maximums

Prospect editing
· Attributes are determined based on scouting grades for different skills

o For hitters: This will include a specific grade for every skill

o For pitchers: This will only include pitch and control/command grades, which are then combined to generate per 9 grades

o For pitchers: Pitch control is determined by control/command grades, while movement is determined by the overall pitch grade

o Final attributes are not meant to perfectly replicate grades. Instead, each player has a specific archetype that is created. Therefore, development in franchise will be critical. Players w/ 60 hit tools are not guaranteed to be 60-grade hitters in the MLB. You actually have to develop that tool still (which is a nice little unique feature)

· Current overalls are determined via a combination of MLB ETA, scouting overall (based on attribute grades and current minor league level), and performance (based on wRC+ or xFIP at certain minor league levels)
· Potentials are determined based on projected future role. Below is a rough chart of what overall grades correspond to what overalls, however, this is free-flowing and players can move up based on age, performance, and ceiling projections:

Position Players

Starting Pitchers

Relief Pitchers

“Overall” Grade

Potential

Elite

Elite

75

95-99

Superstar

Ace pitcher

Elite closer

70

90-95

All-Star

Top of rotation

Top closer

65

86-90

Great

SP 2/3

High leverage

60

82-85

Above Average

Mid rotation

Mid-late RP

55

78-81

Average

SP 4/5

Regular RP

50

75-77

Role (Below Average)

5th SP

Low leverage RP

45

72-74

AAAA player

40

69-71

AAA player

35

64-68

New Draft Pick Editing in Franchise

Spoiler

In order to maintain roster integrity as franchise goes on, I’ve found it necessary to edit incoming draft picks to make sure that newly drafted players do not completely outshine pre-established prospects. Therefore, I created a simple system to editing newly drafted players once your franchise has started.

Final Comments
I want to thank each and every last one of you who download these rosters and give them a try. I actually had a decent amount of fun putting this project together even with it taking ~200+ hours of work. If you have any feedback, please feel free to leave a comment here. I want to hear what everyone thinks so I can improve my system in any way.

WE. ARE. LIVE!

Vault: ViatorLion10
Name: Franchise Fidelity to Reality

Much love to Sports Gaming Rosters, JWDixon, and Matthew Thompson over at Prospects Live for all of their efforts!




If you like the rosters and would like to donate a little bit, I would be massively appreciative, though it is by no means required:

Venmo: @Anthony-Quagliano

I wish you all the best this season!

Peace, love, and baseball


Be sure to subscribe to me on YouTube for MLB The Show content and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3L...kChNxkvtpBdmnQ


Come chat with us on discord: https://discord.gg/6Baz2hwhpS

[ViatorLion10]

I'm very happy to announce it looks like Sports Gaming Rosters and I will be collabing on this project. He's currently busting his *** getting a primary roster in order while I work behind the scenes to finish up generating some of the ratings.


I've gotta say, looking at what I've got so far, it looks like it's coming together very well. I will be putting up previews of some of the rosters in the next day or so (probably by Tuesday with the game launch for the general public) so everyone can get a sneak preview of what the rosters are going to look like.

[cneil51]

Really appreciate the effort and time you guys put into making these rosters and essentially making franchise even playable cause as it has been stated many times SDS stock rosters are trash.

I do have a couple questions in regards to your collab efforts with SGR. Correct me if I'm wrong but SGR is creating the base roster and you will be altering it from there ? If so, will you be changing things such as player attributes like contact/power, positions, potential grades ??

I want to start a Blue Jays franchise and while their roster is pretty good off the hop I feel like certain players are grossly underrated.. example being Cavan Biggio. I think his overall should be in the low 80s or at worst high 70s not 73.

I look forward to your response and what you fellas will be bringing to the table. Keep up the awesome work !!!

[ViatorLion10]

Quote: Originally Posted by cneil51

Really appreciate the effort and time you guys put into making these rosters and essentially making franchise even playable cause as it has been stated many times SDS stock rosters are trash. I do have a couple questions in regards to your collab efforts with SGR. Correct me if I'm wrong but SGR is creating the base roster and you will be altering it from there ? If so, will you be changing things such as player attributes like contact/power, positions, potential grades ?? I want to start a Blue Jays franchise and while their roster is pretty good off the hop I feel like certain players are grossly underrated.. example being Cavan Biggio. I think his overall should be in the low 80s or at worst high 70s not 73. I look forward to your response and what you fellas will be bringing to the table. Keep up the awesome work !!!

SGR is putting together the base roster. Basically making sure all the correct players are on the correct teams and adding in a decent amount of missing players. Definitely a pretty large job in and of itself.


As per your other question, I will be editing everything. If you want more detail on every little thing, I believe all your questions will be answered in the original thread post. My plan as of now is for SGR to finish setting up the base roster while I work on finalize rating and potentials for prospects. Once SGR is finished with making the base, he'll start the editing process until I can finish all the prospects, at which point I will take over and finish all the necessary edits.


As far as Cavan Biggio, I have him as a 77OVR w/ 80 potential

[cneil51]

Right on, it sounds like you guys have a great plan of attack !

Does your original April 15th timeline for the release of the roster change now that you're working alongside SGR ?

[jcblayze]

We are going to put out a tremendous roster guys. I hope you all check it out.

[bostonboy_003]

Pumped for this!!!


Sent from my iPad using Operation Sports

[bostonboy_003]

Quote: Originally Posted by cneil51

Right on, it sounds like you guys have a great plan of attack ! Does your original April 15th timeline for the release of the roster change now that you're working alongside SGR ?

Was wondering this too.


Sent from my iPad using Operation Sports